Ontwerp voor raam in het Noordertransept in de Dom te Utrecht c. 1934

Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst made this design for a window in the Dom Church in Utrecht with chalk and watercolor. It’s such a beautifully awkward piece. The warm palette and simplified forms give it a real sense of depth, even though the colours are quite muted. I love the areas of scribbled pencil marks that add another layer of complexity. They remind me of Cy Twombly. He of course was working in a very different context, but he also understood the power of the simple gesture and the expressive potential of a line. Looking at the textures and colours here, I can see that the process of making art is really about embracing the unexpected, allowing for mistakes and imperfections. It's a bit like life, isn't it? Definitely something I aspire to in my own paintings. It feels like there is something elemental at work here, a reminder that art is always in conversation with what has come before, and what will come after.